Thursday, October 9, 2014

USDA/FDA Food Standards - Specifically Chicken

Okay so I finally got around to watching Food Inc. and I wasn't really surprised by what I had heard or seen. I have been actively learning and living an Eastern medicine-based diet and lifestyle (primarily), and although I can't say it's 100 percent of the time, I believe it's enough to make a difference. I could get into it again about GMOs in depth, but I'd like to remain on tangent here. Same with organic. Organic and natural are often confused and conflated, but the two are best. Optimally, both their relationship and employment should be synergistic if they are to accomplish their stated "goals," which really are to cause the least amount of harm to the body and/or environment as possible. There are many additives in food (often the ones we are unable to pronounce, or names that you couldn't readily point out in the real world without a microscope) that are ultimately toxic to the body, and are therefore cancer-causing. There are also products being used to maintain crops, flocks, and herds, and make them more profitable - whether it be by diet, immunization, or another form of supplementation, that have the same effects. These substances are extremely hard to be eliminated from the body. For example, hormones begin to multiply once they enter our systems. These hormones can be passed on from crop to animal to human, or from crop to human, regardless of preparations. Obviously there are ways to lessen and avoid these, but the FDA and its standards makes the process a difficult one.
Back to Food Inc. - Okay so a large portion of the documentary took you to farms to see and hear farmers and their farms. One of the farmers spoke about how they were almost shut down by the administration because the chickens were exposed to outside air (who would want it to be otherwise, please come see me). In my mind, the quickest comparison I can make is in a hospital, if someone has ANY chance of being infected with anything that is harmful to individuals around them (and anyone the surrounding individuals may come in contacts with before they show symptoms) such as MRSA, shall we close all the windows and doors and limit air flow? Or shall we allow for proper ventilation so at least new air is filtering the germs out and limiting its chances of spreading to other individuals? I think the latter would be the intelligent answer. So the family farm had their microbial units cultured. Their product was found to have 133 C.F.U. while the store products averaged 3,600 C.F.U. I have nothing left to say. I was dumbfounded. I didn't think it would be THAT different. But it is. And the best part is, the farmers' produce wasn't treated or bathed in chlorine like those in the store. Talk about standards. The Administration should really try to direct their focus in areas that need it. Whether a threshold exists or not, they should really take action to require other farms to emulate this to protect its citizens. I didn't look up the standards, as I'd like to keep educating myself on the issue before I draw unnecessary parallels, but I'll post more about this issue later. Hopefully it gets us somewhere eventually :)

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